Elder Nelson's talk

This week one of my coworkers went to see the Book of Mormon musical. She brought me back the playbill, she said to show me all of the "non-ironic" ads that were in the playbill for the real Book of Mormon and mormon.org. She thought that was great! I agreed. Since the Church purchased the ad space in the Book of Mormon playbill, the facing pages of the cast of characters and list of scenes looks like this

She might have thought, "Well, here you go. The musical talks about how eager these Mormons always are to talk to you about their church. They're just feeding right into the stereotype." And why wouldn't we be? I haven't seen the show (and don't plan to because I understand it is much more crude than the type of entertainment I usually choose to participate in), but, shoot, if it inspires even one person in that audience to say, "I wonder what the fuss is all about? Maybe I should read it for myself," I think that's probably worthwhile. I know the opening song has lyrics that say, "This book will change your life." Whether or not this is done for comedic effect doesn't change the claim. And it will. Most people will see the show for an artistic or cultural experience, and some might come out of it with some very skewed ideas about Mormonism. But for the people who realize that they are in fact looking for something to change their lives, here's the invitation, loud and clear.

Now, I don't at all want to give the impression that this coworker does not support me in my religion. She is quite religious herself, and we've had some really great talks about things that I wouldn't necessarily talk about with other coworkers. She's been absolutely respectful and open to conversations, and we've both learned more about what the other believes. So, even though I haven't heard of anyone joining the Church because they saw the show (I would be very surprised about that), it did open up another avenue for conversation. She knew I had served a mission and wanted to know how some of the things she saw in the show compared to what I had done. I know she was not asking for a full conference talk as a response (and I didn't give her one--I tried my best to concisely but fully address her questions), but I just couldn't believe how perfect it was that the next conference Elder Nelson had a full talk that explained what I spent that time doing: I was trying to help. In any way I could. And while some of the peculiarities of missionary life might make a good satire, the spirit of missionary life is infinitely more important in every way.

So, for anyone who would like to go to a deeper level of understanding on what missionaries do, or perhaps have a chance to reflect on some of your own experiences with missionary work, here is a great talk that I'd recommend to anyone who wants to know what missionary life is like. It's a good 15 minutes to take out of your day to reflect.

Ask the Missionaries! They Can Help You!